Hi everyone, happy Friday! Hope your all ready to enjoy the weekend. Loved reading your comments to my Green Smoothie post, if anyone would like to join in with the 7 days, 7 smoothies challenge please feel free!

I’ve had a great couple of days off which have been spent doing my favourite pass times: shopping, cooking, eating, reading and exercising!

I started Thursday morning with a home workout. I decided that I wanted to get my workout completed early and as my gym doesn’t open until 9am on a Thursday I checked out my DVD collection and went with Davina Fit: Top Fit and MTV Yoga which gave me a total 1hr 15 min workout. I was starving after this but luckily I had prepared breakfast in advance:

My Vanilla Chia Wheat Germ Breakfast Pudding with two chopped white nectarines, yum!

I spent the morning getting all the grocery shopping done which included a trip to the farm shop, green grocer, Tesco and Sainbury’s – yep, there’s some stuff that Tesco do cheaper than sainsbos and some stuff I just prefer from sainsbos so I did both!

Lunch was some raw wraps made with spring green leaves, sunflower seed butter, carrot, pink lady apple and basil. I also had 4 clearspring sesame tamari rice cakes on the side:

I love these wraps they are amazingly tasty and filling!

Mid afternoon I fancied a big green juice so I juiced up 1 pear, 3 romaine leaves, celery, cucumber, broccoli, spinach and lemon, it was delicious!

Dinner was an awesome Buddha bowl. I combined roast kabocha squash, edamame, quinoa and chopped parsley with a lemon juice, braggs seasoning and cool oil dressing and served it up on top of some steamed broccoli and purple sprouting broccoli with shoyu. I also added some viva pure spicy pumpkin seeds:

This was so so good, I adore kabocha, nothing else comes close to the sweetness and texture of it, delicious!

Dessert was two raw vegan brownie bites topped with coconut flour ‘icing’:

Delish! I also had two unpictured fiji apples.

This morning I was up and off to the gym. I did 1 hour of intervals on the cross trainer, step machine, bike and rowing machine. Oh, and that’s 1 hour total, not one hour on each! I think the way I write that can be misleading sometimes, I do 15 minutes on each machine for a total 1 hour workout. I finished off with my abs and core exercises.

Breakfast was the first green smoothie of my Green Smoothie Challenge:

Apple Pie Green Smoothie (makes one large serving):

• 5 large kale stems (with thick stems removed) – or greens of choice
• 1 frozen banana
• 1 pink lady apple, chopped
• 2 ice cubes
• 1 scoop of vanilla protein powder (I used sun warrior)
• 1 1/2 tsp of cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp of ground ginger
• 1/2 cup of rice milk
• 1 tsp of maca (optional)
• 1 tsp of spirulina (optional)
• 1 tsp of ground flax (optional)
• water to desired thickness
• 1/2 – 1 tsp of xanthan gum (optional but adds thickness)

Topping

• 1 tbsp of almond butter
• 1 tbsp of granola (I used viva pure raw apple granola)
• cinnamon

Add ingredients to blender in order listed above, blend. Top with the almond butter and granola and a dusting of cinnamon, devour!

This really did taste like apple pie, so lush! I loved the drippy almond butter on top.

James had the day off too so we headed to Newcastle – I got the most gorgeous ultra skinny jeans and coat from H&M, pics to come over the weekend! I also got stocked up on my favourite yogi teas and soya beans from the health food shop. We were going to have lunch in town but ran out of parking time so when I got home I threw together a tasty salad containing lots of mixed green leaves (spinach, romaine, lambs lettuce and parsley) carrot, red pepper, cucumber, sugar snaps, spring onion and spicy roasted chickpeas and a peanut lime dressing (1 tbsp of peanut flour, lime juice, water and shoyu):

I also had an orange. Later in the afternoon I had another green juice. Dinner was leftovers of last nights Buddha bowl with spring greens instead of broccoli.

Last week I said that I had came up with a recipe using the leftover pulp from making my sesame milk – and here it is!

Raw Chocolate Sesame Tart (makes 4)

• 1 cup of leftover sesame pulp (from making milk)
• 2 tbsp of raw cacao powder
• 1 tbsp of agave syrup
• 1 tbsp of coconut oil, melted

Combine all ingredients and divide mixture between 4 tart cases with removal bottoms. Store in the freezer until needed then remove from tart case 10 minutes before eating, enjoy!

I served mine with some fresh strawberries and figs, it tasted fab!

I really enjoyed my big grocery shop. I was due one as the last time I really properly stocked my cupboards was October. I like to do a huge shop to stock up then I just work my way through everything. As well as the store cupboard type stuff I also got a fantastic haul of fresh produce from the farm shop and green grocers:

 

Yep, this filled my kitchen!

I’m looking forward to some delicious meals using this stuff for the coming week. I was also pretty good and stuck to my list apart from buying two new items:

Hemp milk:

Carob flakes:

Both spotted on Jessica’s blog. I had a taste of the carob flakes and oh my word they are so good! Have you tried hemp milk or carob flakes before? What did you think?

Do you do a monster grocery shop every so often or do you just get things in each week? I love having fully stocked cupboards then just picking up a few fresh items when needed.

Any exciting plans for the weekend? I’m out for one of my best friends birthday’s on Saturday night along with the usual family visits and my long run. I’m not looking forward to the clocks going forward, it always messes with by bio clock!

Hope you have all had a great week and enjoy your weekend!

Hi everyone, we are almost at the weekend thank goodness! I’ve had a bit of a crazy work week so I’m looking forward to the break.

I kicked off Wednesday with an early morning gym workout. I did 30 minutes of speed intervals on the treadmill. I say speed intervals, I don’t follow a proper plan – I just start with a 5 minute warm up (6mph) then 5 minute intervals at different speeds: 6.5mph, 7mph, 6.7mph, 7.2mph then finish with 5 minutes of 30 second intervals at 6.7mph / 7.7mph. Today I actually discovered how to change the display to show the pace as well as the speed so that could help when doing tempo runs in the future! Laura recommended that I read Run Less Run Faster to help get my head around all that so I have ordered it in at the library. I then did 30 minutes of HIITs on the cross trainer, step machine and bike followed by my abs and core.

Breakfast was unsurprisingly a smoothie! This one contained romaine, some spinach / kale / cabbage mix that I’d picked up from the reduced section, frozen ‘forest fruits’ mix, vanilla hemp protein powder, peanut flour, maca, spirulina, matcha green tea, ground flax, vanilla rice milk, water and xanthan gum. Toppings were Bear apple crumble granola and some mixed seeds:

I also had another raspberry coffee – so in love with that stuff right now!

Today started with a quick 15 minute full body toning yoga flow from Slim, Calm Sexy Yoga then a big bowl of Dorset Cereals Low fat Tasty Flakes with 2 chopped plums, vanilla rice milk and a maple and walnut coffee sweetened with agave:

This was the last of the bag of cereal so I got all the little crumbs, which I love!

Wednesday’s lunch was courgette and carrot noodles with some of my cheesy butternut sauce and an orange:

This was so moreish, the butternut sauce is just so good you have to try it! Today’s lunch was some Lentil and Spinach soup with two sliced kiwis and several pink lady apples:

Before lunch I had started to feel a bit faint and shaky so I ate a little satsuma at work then on the way to the Library I popped to the shops and got a pack of pink lady apples. I ended up munching all 4 of them, they are just so sweet and crunchy!

Wednesday’s snack was a pumpkin seed ryvita with hazelnut butter plus some sugar snap peas and cucumber slices:

Today I snacked on one of my raw vegan brownie bites. I hadn’t actually tried one of these yet even though I’d made them last week and oh my god it was so good, the texture was just heavenly! Very glad I have several more stashed in the freezer!

I also fitted in a quick gym session after work. I did my upper body free weights routine and followed it with 10 minutes of HIITs on the step machine and 15 minutes of HIITs on the bike.

Dinner both evenings has been a new recipe. I picked up an aubergine at the green grocers last week and wasn’t sure what to make with it so I consulted my Evernote account and saw I’d book marked the Leon recipe for Hippy Beans. It sounded delicious so here’s my slightly amended version:

Hippy Beans with Rice and Greens (inspired by recipe in Leon Ingredients and Recipes, makes 4 large servings):

• 1 large onion, roughly chopped
• 2 fat garlic cloves, minced
• 2 peppers – I used one red and one yellow, roughly chopped
• 1 aubergine, roughly chopped
• 1 bunch of runner beans, roughly chopped
• 1 tin of mixed beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 tin of kidney beans (could add whatever beans you fancy)
• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
• 1/2 cup of water from a recently boiled kettle
• 3 tablespoons of sweet chilli jam / sweet chilli sauce
• 2 handfuls of spinach
• Rice and steamed spring greens / kale / cabbage to serve

In a large pan fry the onion and garlic in a little oil over a medium heat until softened. Add the aubergine, peppers and runner beans and continue to fry for a few minutes until the aubergine is lightly browned. Add the drained beans and chopped tomatoes. Add the hot water and the chilli jam. Cover the pan and allow to simmer for 15 minutes until the peppers and aubergine are tender and the sauce has gone syrupy. Add in the spinach and stir until it wilts down. Serve with the rice and greens and a sprinkle of mixed seeds:

This is just proper lush! The sweet chilli sauce adds a delicious syrupy sweetness and a touch of heat, so good :-) Tonight I had it with steamed kale, broccoli and cauliflower.

Wednesday’s dessert was some Conscious Cherry raw chocolate with chopped apples:

This was nice but I think I prefer the Conscious chocolate that is flavoured like the mint or orange rather than just containing dried fruits.

Tonight I whipped up a quick batch of tofu yoghurt (1 pack of mori nu silken tofu with 1 little jar of baby food fruit puree and vanilla extract, blended in food processor) topped with some pomegranate seeds:

So creamy, I really love this simple tofu yoghurt.

I enjoyed my little apple binge today (pink lady apples are my absolute fave) but I do know that in the past my excessive apple snackies have been a sign that I haven’t been eating enough and clearly that was the case today – especially when I started to feel shaky. I have to admit I’m still struggling with the balance of eating the right amount – I don’t calorie count at all and never have, but I’m finding myself drawn to the idea if only to give me some reassurance. I’ve tried to stop weighing myself all the time too and I’m going to wait until the end of the month and see what the scales say then. I really am trying to remember the healthy over skinny mantra as much as possible and eat when I feel hungry without feeling guilty afterwards. It may sound a little silly but changing the blog name from keeping slim to keeping healthy has made a huge difference to my mind set! I know I’ll get there eventually.

As for my running I know I’m going to have to get my head around a half marathon training plan soon if I want to improve my speed. When I trained for the Great North Run last year I just winged it but this year I’d like to try something a little more structured. To all you runners out there, do you do speed work / intervals / tempo runs? How do you approach your running training?

Hope your all having a great week, bring on the weekend!

I bought a new car this weekend!

This isn’t the exact one but the same model and colour, I pick mine up tomorrow night. I got a great deal and I’m really excited! Its super economical and environmentally friendly and drives very well too :-)

Saturday morning I got up and decided that I wanted to get my run out of the way and done for the weekend instead of waiting until Sunday as I usually do. I fuelled up with an orange and 2 amazing medjool dates. I did 3 ‘laps’ of my hilly route for a total 7.02 miles in 1hr 9 minutes so a much slower pace than last week, but to be honest with those hills I was happy to have kept it under 10 min miles.

Post run breakfast was a good one – my tutti fruity smoothie with added romaine lettuce, spirulina, matcha green tea, maca and xanthan gum plus a tbsp of PB2 then topped with another tbsp of PB2 made into a sauce, goji berries and viva pure raw granola:

 

I had this bowl plus another half a bowl (the lettuce gives so much volume) and it was amazing. The PB2 is just divine, I’m thinking of ordering another couple of jars as I know the one I have will not last long! I’m also in love with the raw granola.

After car shopping I came home and had some miso and ginger soup, two rice cakes with tahini, a large chopped carrot, several chopped apples and a bowl of blueberries, blackberries and strawberries. A little later I made a wonderful green juice:

This contained pear, broccoli, cucumber, celery, Japanese spinach and lemon, I really can’t get enough green juice at the moment!

Dinner was the other half of my spelt and veggie pizza with some raw radicchio and romaine. Then we decided to open a lovely bottle of red. I had a large glass of this wine and my final two booja booja truffles:

This morning I decided to make use of two of the three near empty nut butter jars I’ve been saving with berry oats in a jar. I made some porridge on the stove top with 1/2 cup of rude health fruity date mix and 1 1/2 cups of water. I added some mixed frozen berries and brown rice syrup and poured into my nut butter jars then topped with a fresh strawberry:

Check out the peanut butter on the side of that jar – nom! I also opened some raspberry coffee I got at Christmas and oh my god it was just amazing!

Lunch was some raw cabbage wraps with pink lady apple, carrot, fresh basil and sunflower seed butter plus some mixed fresh berries:

These were delicious! I’m enjoying eating more raw foods after reading about the benefits in Crazy Sexy Diet – raw wraps are such an easy way to do that. I also think I finally got the hang of wrapping them up so they don’t fall apart! During the afternoon I snacked on a few more pink lady apples and made myself another tasty green juice with apple, romaine, Japanese spinach, celery, ginger and lemon.

Dinner was a blogger inspired creation - I had seen this recipe for butternut squash cheesy sauce on Oh She Glows and knew I needed to try and make my own version:

Cheesy Butternut Sauce (makes two to four servings) Inspired by Oh She Glows

• 1/2 small butternut squash, peeled and roasted until tender
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons of sweet white miso
• 1 1/2 tablespoons of nutritional yeast powder (or if using flakes increase to 2)
• Milk – enough to reach desired consistency – I used 1 1/4 cups of plain rice milk, soy milk would also be lovely
• pinch of salt

Add all of the ingredients to a food processor and blend into a sauce. Add more milk for a thinner consistency (this thickens up in the fridge so bear that in mind) or more nutritional yeast for a more cheesy taste. This sauce could easily be used as either a pasta sauce, salad dressing or if left thicker, then a tasty dip.

I served mine with some brown rice and vegetable penne, courgette, steamed tender stem broccoli and radicchio plus nutritional yeast flakes and fresh basil on top:

 

This is sweet, cheesy and garlicky and oh so good for you! I think I might try it on some raw veggie noodles too. Utterly delicious!

That’s not all I’ve been busy making in the kitchen! Friday I used some of the delicious medjool dates I picked up from my favourite green grocer to make two great recipes. No 1. was Choosing Raw Lemon Kissed Cashew Hemp Bars:

I used half the quantities in the recipe to give me 4 large bars. Can’t wait to eat these as pre gym snacks! I also made some Raw Vegan Chocolate Brownie Bars:

  To make these I blended 1/2 heaping cup of dates with 1/2 cup of mixed walnuts and brazil nuts, 1 tsp of vanilla extract and 2 tbsp of raw cacao powder in my food processor then pressed the mixture into the bottom of a lunch box and froze until firm then sliced into squares. Holy yum!

I also had several ripe bananas to use up. I couldn’t decide if I should make some banana black bean brownies, muffins, cookies or banana bread. In the end, with help from twitter pals, I decided to go with the banana bread, and I’m sure glad I did! I made quite a few adaptations to a Veganomicon recipe and luckily they all worked very well:

Coconut Banana Bread (adapted from Veganomicon Lower Fat Banana Bread)

• Three small or two large very ripe bananas
• 1/4 cup of apple sauce or baby food fruit puree
• 1/4 cup of rapeseed oil
• 1/2 cup of xylitol (or natural caster sugar)
• 2 tbsp of barley malt syrup (or agave / maple syrup)
• 1 1/2 cups of wholegrain spelt flour
• 1/2 cup of coconut flour (or could just use more spelt flour)
• 1/3 cup of desiccated coconut
• 3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Pre heat the oven to gas mark 4 / 180c and grease a standard size loaf tin. Mash the bananas well, then add the apple sauce, oil, xylitol and barley malt syrup and combine well. Add the spelt flour, coconut flour, desiccated coconut, bicarbonate of soda, salt and cinnamon and mix until just combined. Transfer to prepared tin and top with a good sprinkle of desiccated coconut. Bake for 45 – 50 minutes until golden brown (I checked mine at 45 minutes and it was over browning on the top but not cooked in the middle so I would advise covering the top with foil after 30 minutes). A knife should come out clean. Leave to cool and devour!

My parents and James had a few slices of this and it went down extremely well! I had a slice of for dessert and it was absolutely heavenly. Moist, bananary coconuty yumminess!

So I’ve had a pretty awesome weekend with getting sorted with my new car and all this cooking! Although I’ve had a good one I’ve been so saddened with what has happened in Japan, it reminds you of what’s important in life at the end of the day doesn’t it? My heart goes out to everyone that’s been affected.

What’s your favourite flavour loaf or bread? My coconut banana bread tasted amazing but I also love gingerbread and my Carrot, Date and Walnut Loaf.

Hope you’ve all had a great weekend and have a good week ahead!

Well I just have to say a big thank you for all the kind comments on my Vlog! I’m very happy that you enjoyed it (and my Geordie accent!) It seems that I could have an alternative career being a narrator or a voice over! I’ll definitely be posting more in the future, what can I say I like to ramble on ;-) You can also follow my channel on You Tube. Now on to the eats!

These are my eats and random things from yesterday. As soon as I woke up I was off to the kitchen for my hot water and lemon juice which I drank in the bathroom while putting my make up on:

For breakfast I had myself a little treat. I’d noticed that I still had a couple of slices of my raw caramel pecan cake in the freezer and thought it would be great for breakfast! I had a slice with a smoothie made with frozen cherries, hemp milk, vanilla sun warrior protein powder, water, ice, vanilla stevia and a pinch of sea salt:

It was divine! I also had coffee, obviously…

I was pretty excited when I saw that we were going to get some sun so I thought I’d get out a pair of sandals, for the first time this year I think!

OOTD: blazer: H&M, stripy top: Zara, jewelled headband (worn as necklace): River Island, black ankle length pants: Zara, jewelled cuff: Miss Selfridge, gladiator style sandals: Primark

Mid morning at work I snacked on some home made hummus with carrots to keep me going:

Lunch was a really good salad with romaine, spinach, cucumber, red onion, carrot, black beans, pumpkin seeds and an orange basil dressing:

The dressing was delicious! I’d made it at the weekend by combining fresh orange juice, basil leaves, apple cider vinegar, garlic and hemp oil. I wished I could have gone and ate my lunch outside, it was gorgeous!

Mid afternoon I had a crunchy fresh jazz apple and one of my raw cherry almond protein brownies:

Then it was off to the gym for Body Pump! I got there a bit early so did 20 minutes cardio on the machines before the class. It was a hot and sweaty one for sure!

Dinner was a baked sweet potato stuffed with sunflower seed butter, steamed broccoli with soy sauce and some cold marinated and baked tofu:

This is my favourite meal at the moment! Sweet potato with any type of nut butter is always good, I can’t get enough broccoli, and the firm and cold tofu (which I’d marinated in soy sauce, garlic and ginger powder then baked at the weekend) is just perfect.

For dessert I made a smoothie with a scoop of spiru-tein s’mores flavour, mixed frozen berries, water, ice, stevia and a pinch of xanthan gum to thicken, topped with freeze dried berries and pineapple pieces:

I’ve been craving smoothies like crazy so far this week! Instead of my usual hot tea I decided to make an iced tea:

This was just a bag of sleepy time tea left a while with some cold water and ice plus some agave for added sweetness, it was very refreshing.

So another pretty standard day from me! I’m happy with the balance I’m achieving at the moment, especially between cooked and raw foods. That breakfast will be repeated as will my dinner, I love it when meals satisfy you like that! I generally love variety in my diet, but occasionally I just love something so much I repeat it over and over! Do you have a favourite meal at the moment?

P.S Last chance to enter my GIVEAWAY to win a copy of Superfoods for Women Only – Check it out!

Happy New Year everyone, lets make 2012 the best one yet!

Hope you all had a great time last night! We decided to make a bit of a day of it with a trip into town for coffee, a movie, lunch and drinks before getting settled at home to see the New Year in.

New Years Eve outfit: Parka coat: Miss Selfridge, black quilted bag: Topshop, long beige cardigan (under coat): Zara, metallic shift dress: Topshop, long gold necklace: Freedom @ Topshop, short gold necklace: Warehouse, black tights: M&S, black flat ankle boots: New Look

I really wanted to wear my metallic dress for New Years so dressed it down for the day with the parka coat and flat boots. Yes, that is another Urban Outfitters bag in the background, I went an bought myself another mug on sale to use at work!

I’ve had this twice over the last couple of days its so good! Vanilla Cookie Green Smoothie containing spinach, cookies and cream spirutein powder, vanilla stevia, ice, pomegranate juice topped with roast salted almonds, raisins and tahini

We went to see Sherlock Holmes at the Tyneside Cinema and it was awesome! Afterwards we went for a Chinese meal and I filled up on the usual spicy cucumber pickle, mapo tofu, crispy fried greens and fruit before we went for drinks. After calling in to see friends and family we came home and got settled in to see in the New Year.

Snack tray with falafel, veggies, olives, hummus and crackers

Dessert snack plate with dark chocolate reindeer, dates, dried apricots, mixed nuts and roast soya beans plus maple almond butter and tahini with honey for dipping

Lots and lots of red wine! I also had some strawberry pear cider and the last of my amaretto with pomegranate juice

I also ate a lot more chocolate! This morning I wasn’t feeling hung over but was feeling well and truly ready to get back to eating simpler healthier foods. I had been hoping to go out for a run but the weather was awful so I did some light yoga instead. A bit later I made a lovely bowl of oats for a late breakfast.

Super berry porridge made with 1/2 cup oats, water, thyme honey, berries powder, fresh blackberries, pumpkin seeds, cacao nibs and almond butter

I had been planning on making a puff pastry tart for New Year’s Day lunch but the thought of pastry made me want to hurl! I ended up making a beautiful salad instead plus a tasty dessert:

Butternut and lentil salad (based on this recipe) with chopped dried apricots, parsley and an orange cumin dressing

Raw orange chocolate brownie balls based on my raw vegan brownie bites recipe but with orange zest added

New Years Day Outfit: faux fur scarf: New Look, gold swallow earrings: Topshop, chunky cardigan: Topshop, skinny tan leather belt: Topshop, silk floral dress: French Connection, black leggings: H&M, tan leather boots: New Look, tan cross body bag: Mango

We’ve just come home from New Year’s Day lunch at my Mam and Dad’s which we also enjoyed with my Sister, Brother in Law and two adorable nephews. I’m looking forward to spending the rest of New Years Day relaxing in my pj’s drinking tea!

I was definitely happy to start eating less rich foods from this morning too, I have enjoyed some tremendous eats in December but now simple and clean meals are calling my name, I’ll blog a bit more on this tomorrow!

How did you celebrate the New Year?